Chapter 24: All Together Now... ------------------------------- Rydia smiled as she awoke next to Edge in the camp. Her friends were alive again. She looked at Edge and smiled. She stood and walked around thinking about what was happening. Six thousand years, orbs, crystals, the Big Whale, Celes, Cecil, FuSoYa... Gradually the others woke up. Of course, Edge was the last to do so. They sat around the remnants of the fire, talking, laughing, and eating again, like they had the night before, when suddenly the sun was blacked out. "An eclipse?" Golbez was the first to wonder. The moon wasn't set for another eclipse for almost a month. "I trust you all missed me?" called a voice from above. "Who's that?" Golbez asked. "Loudmouth Celes, that's who." Edge grimaced. The airship flew half a mile down and landed. The others came to see. Edge and Golbez had their swords drawn, and even Rydia was a little more defensive. Edge froze when he saw the airship. "My baby!" he cried. He ran up to the airship. "Falcon! You're back!" Celes came down from the gangplank. "You were calling me loony, yet you are the one hugging an airship..." Edge immediately lunged at Celes. "You're not getting the rest of the orb!" Celes didn't have time to draw her sword; fortunately, Rosa had time to fire a warning arrow. Edge froze. "Still the one to rush head-first into battles, aren't we, Edge?" Rosa smiled. "Rosa!" Cecil cried from the group. "Cecil!" They ran toward each other; Cecil picked up his love and swung her around. He dipped her and they kissed. "Good to see you again" was an understatement on Cecil's part. Golbez walked right past the happy couple to check Celes. She still had a piece of the orb around her neck. "Hand that over!" The way he said it, Celes formed three quick opinions about the guy: loud, obnoxious, and rude. "And who might you be?" She said it in an equally curt manner. "I am Golbez, Chief of Lunarian Security." "Then I must say you aren't doing your job. I snuck an entire starship in there without anyone asking me any questions." "Don't play games with me, girl. I could destroy you with a wave of my hand." "And I, you, Golbez." FuSoYa appeared above deck. "FuSoYa, you are in league with this... thing." Golbez stopped. "No offense, in case you were wondering..." Celes said. "Stop this. We have much to do and little time to do it. Rosa, Cecil, I am very happy you found each other again, but we have to get to work." ***** "Here's the plan." FuSoYa motioned to the maps on the table. "First, Cel...." He was interrupted by a noise that sounded something between a 9.7 earthquake and a concert given by The Lunarian Metallics. The Big Whale sat outside; another ship, obviously of the same basic planning as the Whale, sat next to it. A hatch opened, and Flemme stepped out. He talked in English this time. "We found this floating near our planet, pretty well burned... care to tell us how it got there?" ***** Flemme had left, leaving the Big Whale in their possession, as long as they didn't almost incinerate it again. "We have an advantage now," Rosa said enthusiastically. "How do you figure?" Leave it to Golbez to be doubtful. "They have four airships, we have one and the Whale, that should about even it out. Now if we could only find a way to beat their ground forces, it'll be us on Edgar. He wouldn't have a chance." "They still have chocobos, of three types, and have a huge army." FuSoYa said. "Don't tell me we still need more people?" "We still need more people." "What about Edward?" Cid piped up. "What?" "Edward, you know, that minstrel guy with the blonde hair..." "Discuss him later." "Forget fighting them. We'll never win an all-out war. Here is how we win: we have Celes capture us," FuSoYa said. "The old man has finally gone senile," Edge commented. "I'll ignore that." The others were skeptical. "Alright, listen, if Celes goes to Edgar with us captured he's going to try and brainwash us, but he has to be in direct contact with us to do that. All we need to do is have Celes loosen our bonds beforehand and we can burst out fighting." "With what? Our bare hands?" "He has a lot of ceremonial swords hanging on his walls, we could use them. Other stuff we could sneak in." "Right, and while we're fighting him the entire Figaran army slashes our heads off from behind." "It's our best shot." ***** That night they used Cid's crane to load the airship onto the Big Whale. "I'll stay behind in case..." Rosa started. "What the hell am I saying? I'm coming too." "I'll stay behind," Cid offered. "You won't be much help in battle anyway. I trust all of the usual secret passages are in place and all, right?" Celes adjusted her sword belt. "Edgar hasn't done any interior remodeling, everything should be the same," Cid said. Celes shifted the orb shard in her pocket and fixed the one around her neck. "Alright, I'm ready." "Me too," FuSoYa said. He turned to face the others. "Well, are you guys coming?" ***** That night, the attack on Figaro began.