Barret's group just made it into the tower. After careful scrutiny, they discovered the route to the main computer room. They
were linked with the other group via convenient walkie talkies. Elena and Yuffie had found the route via a map discarded in cigarette butts. Barret grinned.

 "Look here... a complete map of the tower! With some minor cigarette burns," She noted. Barret took out the map, and found it took over half of the floor. He found their current location, and mapped the route to Kefka.

 "Gonna take us a while," Yuffie noted. The others nodded in agreement. They found the computer mainframe, and proceeded towards it. "We should be able to find them if we look in the right place..." Yuffie remarked, and they nodded. After a few hours of twists, turns, and baddies, they eventually made it to the mainframe. "Gonna take some reeeal clever hacking to get this one done. Let's see..." After five minutes of looking, swearing, and typing, Yuffie got the file. "Sweet! Right here! That's where they are! In the prison blocks. (Duh, She thought to herself) We'll get there. Only some stairs, doors, ladders, and elevators!"

 "Oh great!" Barret groaned. "I HATE STAIRS!"

 Cloud's group just got into the tower from where they landed. They quickly made it to what seemed to be an office. But one side was torn apart, and a big, what seemed to be _fleshy_ staircase was on the side. Rock and other assorted elements made it. Tifa made a funny face. Still, they continued on. On through the house of horrors Kefka had built. One room was full of dead monster
carcasses. Then... another room was the room of their personal nightmares. One by one their nightmares played, each for themselves to see. Cloud saw the worst one of all: Aerith's death. Tifa saw Sector Seven destroyed. Vincent saw Hojo shoot and rework him. Despite these horrors, they went on. One room was fortunate enough to have a window. Tifa looked out, down, and back. She nearly fainted.

 "Oh god! Look how far we are!" The others looked outside, and saw only clouds and the horizon. They looked up through the bubble window. They saw the top of the tower; Kefka's domain. More and more they trudged through, eventually stopping for a break.

 "Let's take a breather. But don't let your guard down," Cloud notified them. They had a snack and a drink. All of a sudden, they heard a noise. It sounded like struggling.

 "Let's check it out," Vincent said, and the others nodded. They stealthily approached the source, and found two guards, with their backs turned to them, and they were dragging someone, apparently unconscious. Cloud jumped up, and swung his sword in front of the guards. "Stop there." The guards stopped, and saw Cloud's menacing face. They quickly took out their guns and began to shoot
him. Cloud took his sword, nodded, and began to deflect the bullets with his sword. Suddenly, the shooting stopped. One guard was knocked out, the other was gunned down. Cloud smiled. Vincent and Tifa took it great.

 They picked up the unconscious man. Cloud swore he knew the face, but dragged him on. "I think we need to regroup." Cloud used the walkies to contact the others. They agreed, and the group only had to go a short distance to find the others.

 "So soon we meet... find anything?" Tifa asked.

 "Yeah! We found where the kids are. The prison blocks aren't far from here. Who's that?" Yuffie inquired.

 "Him? Don't know. We'll bring him to the prison blocks to get on a bed... let's go!" The whole group ran to the prison blocks.

 "Hmm... slave... WHERE IS HE??? GUARDS!!" Kefka yelled into a walkie. The guards wouldn't respond. "Damn it... ah ha!" Kefka took a small emitter, and clicked a button.

 The man's eyes began to open; glow. He sprung from their grasp and ran towards the south.

 "Hey! Where are you going?" Cloud shouted. The man just ran. The others had no hope of catching up. So, they proceeded, and got to the prison blocks.. The cells were not full of children, but of adult, mindless drones. One was not awake. It was a female, and it was asleep on a bed.

 "Hey!" Very quietly, Yuffie tapped on the bars. The female stirred. She brushed her hair out of the way, and got up.

 "No, I am NOT going to..." She said sleepily, and then realized who was there.

 "Yuffie!" Yuffie looked puzzled as the tall, blonde haired girl looked at her. Her onyx eyes shone with intelligence, strength, and will.

 "That face looks familiar..." Elena said. They opened the cell door, and Elena looked at the girl. She gave the girl a hug.

 "Oh Ramza!!! I'm so happy to see you again!... or maybe not... why are you all grown up? This is impossible!" Elena looked Ramza in the eye.

 "Kefka... augmented us, so we would be able to do his dirty tasks... they took Nate away... two guards... Big, burly men."

 "Two guards?? Tifa! Vincent! You don't think...? It can't be possible..."

 "NATE!!" They all shouted. The group, including Ramza, opened the cell doors of the other children. "Kefka has this machine he uses to control them. He can control them from anywhere. So we'll just deactivate the machine. Get them out of here!" Ramza said. The others nodded, and they gathered up the children. They put them in the special ejector pack, which zoomed them out on rockets to the Highwind, for safe keeping. The group proceeded on it's way.

 "Okay slave... now that you are back, you will assist us in destroying these pitiful little hamlets. Sephy!"

 "Yeeees?"

 "Give our friend a little motivation, shall we?"

 "Yes, we shall."

 "Forget it, Kefka. I won't do ANYTHING you tell me."

 "Oh yeah? What if..." Kefka took out a computer, and showed Nate what was on the screen. He gasped. His parents were in ropes, about to be lowered in a vat of boiling oil. "Will you help us now?"

 "Kefka, if you lay a finger on them, I'll..." Nate couldn't finish the sentence. He didn't know WHAT he'd do to Kefka. He slanted back, and a frown crossed his face. "Okay... just don't hurt them..."

 "Mwha ha ha! I KNEW you'd see it MY way. Now, come here." Nate reluctantly followed Kefka, and then found a prize in itself: the human gyroscope.

 "This, will let us destroy all! Get in!" Kefka pushed Nate into it, and strapped him on. He put a control into his hand, and strapped goggles on him. "Now, you just go on your merry way, and find a target. Destroy the target by pushing the trigger. The trigger will launch the light of judgement. Go ahead. The power is in your hands..." Kefka's voice sounded tempting. But no... We'll
just destroy something meaningless... like... a mountain! Nate aimed at mount Nibel, and fired. Kefka was full of joy.

 "Great! Let's see what you destroyed!" Kefka unbuckled Nate and took him down. "What what WHAT??? You just destroyed a mountain! How worthless is that?" After Kefka turned around, Nate was gone, and a little black box was at Kefka's feet.

 "Oh great... the... BOMB!!!" Kefka picked up the black box and hurled it at the window. The window burst out in flames.

Author's Notes

Sorry this one took so long, but I had a virus on the computer, and you know how those things go!