Chapter Seven The Storm Gathers.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Taking his seat next to Nina in the official Windian booth, Ryu noticed that Triad did indeed remodel the whole Coliseum. Instead of the simple plank over the water like it originally was, there was now a full arena for the combatants to get pummeled in. And the strange looking devices hanging from the ceiling also caught his attention. He soon found out what they were for when they started talking. "Testing.. Testing.. Okay doke." The entire audience immediately looked up at the speakers, as it was something they never saw before. Up in the closed-off booth above the seats, the announcers noticed the the sudden silence that followed the test. One commented to the other, "Dude, you'll think that they never heard a public address system before!" The other smirked and answered, "Because they haven't, you idiot. Now let's get this started, we ARE on a schedule." "Right." the other said, and grabbed the mike. "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO THE COURSAIR COLISEUM! OVER THE NEXT TWO DAYS, PREPARE FOR THE BATTLES TO END ALL BATTLES! THE ONE, THE ONLY.. THE UNIVERSAL FIGHTING CHAMPIONSHIPS!" The young announcer turned to his superior, "How was that, dude?" The older announcer answered, "Not too shabby, and quit calling me dude!" After the ruckus died down from the announcement, the young man spoke into the microphone again, "Without further ado, are you READY TO RUMMMMMMMMMMMBLE?!?!" The older man sighed and grumbled, "Will you quit it with that Earth slang?", to which the younger one replied, "Bite me." Down in the arena, Ken Masters leaned in one of the entrances, looking across at the challenger. Atahua was evidently from some sort of Aztec reject tribe, as the kid was garbed in what appeared to be a combination of animal skins and bird feathers. With a 'NO PROBLEM', he started whistling, waiting for the signal to begin. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Down in Capitan, dockhands were scattered along the pier. Sabin whistled and started brushing his hands, "Well, now that we are all introduced, let's say we continue our little discussion, eh?" He quickly rushed over to the slow talking dockworker who started the fight and grabbed the back of his shirt. "And where do you think you are slinking off to?" Sabin asked, lifting the man off the ground. The man gulped, looked from Sabin (who blew away most of the attackers), to Gau (who pitched in and actually BIT some of them), to Terra (who spent most of the time trying to figure out how she gets in these messes). The man sighed, and drawled out "Well, if you all want to get to Coursair, I reckon I can get you there in my cart. It'll take most of the day though." "That'll do. We'll be setting off right now then." Terra said. "Right now?" the man sputtered. "You heard the lady," Sabin growled, lifting the man higher off the ground, "So MOVE IT!" Sabin dropped the man, who muttered "Yessirrightawaysir" and ran off toward the town. Terra stared at Sabin and asked, "You enjoyed that, did you?" Sabin winked, "You betcha! Hey, I even fixed his speech problem!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vargas sat in a tree next to the moat. Across the moat stood his objective, the castle, problem was, how to get across the moat without entering the main gate. 'A MOAT?!?' Vargas thought, 'A MOAT?!? He didn't say anything about this!' He already decided that trying to jump in the moat and swimming to the other side was not a good idea. Not only will he attract too much attention, but being soaking wet is not a good way to dress when trying to sneak around. With a growl, he jumped down from the tree and started walking around to the rear of the castle. Luckily nobody noticed the strange, dark skinned man yet, so he could take his time looking around. His examination paid off. "Well, DAMN!" he exclaimed to himself, "A castle with a back door!" The entrance had it's own bridge across the moat, and the door was standing ajar. Vargas smiled, and decided that maybe Sabin Rene Figaro will end up dead, DEAD, DDDDDEEEEEEEAAAAAAADDDDDDDD much sooner than he even wished. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pike was doing swift business. Not only were his silverware utensils (actually not silver, but who's going to tell?) selling at a brisk pace, but he even managed to sell 'Official Universal Fighter Championship' pet rocks. Now working his way through his latest batch of rocks (gathered by Mog behind the Inn and painted with a somewhat decent likeness of the Triad logo) Pike couldn't be happier. Mog, on the other hand, wasn't too happy. Not only was he now contributing to Pike's swindling, but he was getting extremely bored with painting rocks behind the Inn. So he chucked the current art project he was holding, and walked off. The streets weren't as crowded, since the Coliseum was filled to capacity and the people who were foolish enough to show up late bought their (fake) momentos and left. So the moogle wandered the back alleys unnoticed. So unnoticed in fact, that he almost was plowed over by two large men. Ducking behind some discarded boxes, he watched the two men sneak into another alley. 'They are acting rather odd..', Mog thought, so he decided to eavesdrop on them. Curiosity and boredom overtook common sense in this decision. They entered one of the empty buildings through the back entrance. They evidently never noticed the moogle, and thought they were the only ones in this part of the city, as they didn't shut the door all the way. Mog quietly snuck in and hid himself in the shadows. The room that the two men (and one curious moogle) were in was apparently struggling to become somewhat of a kitchen. One of the men grabbed a piece of bread from the counter and tore off a chunk. The other sat down and pulled out his knife and started trimming his fingernails. 'Great, I snuck in on manicurists..' Mog thought. But his disappointed state was changed to a rather alarmed one when the bread chewing man swallowed and said something very out of the ordinary. "So, think we hid his body good enough?" -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------