~~~
..Now, if you had listened to my last case, I can see where you'd think it was just damned convenient that I just so happened to have access to a zeppelin. You'd probably think it was also damned convenient that Yuffie just so happened to have heard about me from a friend. And I'll admit, it is convenient.
..It's also, however, very true. As a matter of fact, both conveniences stem from the same case, which I'll recount here. Coincidence can be a powerful thing.
~~~

One
..I lay at the beach, lounging with a cool drink and a warm heart. I was content here. The air was clean, the view, endless. As I relaxed, tanned visionaries of the coast danced about, sweating in the hot coastal sun. I couldn't tell you what they looked like, but they seemed very happy. The ocean roared.
..I could really find bliss there, at the beach. It seemed like the perfect place to lie back and relax, without a care in the world. I sincerely doubted anything horrible could ever happen at the beach. I vowed to visit a coastal town one day, and let my worries be taken away. The ocean roared.
..Then it roared louder. It seemed to be normal, relaxing water, but soon, it bellowed so loudly, that the sound of the water crashing drowned out everything else.
..I started awake, but still came the roaring. I was frozen to my bed in the terror that can only strike the newly conscious. I tried to gather my bearings as quickly as I could, and found that there did indeed seem to be a horrible racket outside. The window in my bedroom was broken, and there was air rushing about, blowing the curtains this way and that. Many of my possessions, if they could accurately be called a many, blew over on my dresser. Papers were scattered everywhere.
..Eventually, I climbed out of bed, and peered out the window to see what the noise was about. What I saw was a huge behemoth. There were engines everywhere, and it seemed to be struggling to approach the ground. After some thought, I had realized that some maniac had brought a zeppelin clear into the city, and was now trying to land it. He was having some success, too. He'd have to have been a hell of a pilot in order to not explode himself on a nearby building, which he didn't.
..Eventually, the noise stopped, and I went back to bed.
..About two minutes later, someone knocked on my door.
.. ...Nah... couldn't be.
..A few seconds after that, someone knocked again. Now, ordinarily, I'd wait to make sure they knocked a third time, but this instance had piqued my curiosity. I got back out of bed, and tossed on a light shirt. I mussed about with my hair, which was hopeless, anyhow, and vowed to someday buy a hat. I walked into my living area, up to my front door, and opened it.
..Beyond it stood a man just a little bit taller than myself. He wore a brown trench coat, and had silvery hair that went down a fair ways. His face looked like one of those faux antique tables that you make by beating a perfectly good table with a chain for an hour or so. Speaking of faces, that's my name. Face, I mean. It's short for Boniface, because something just has to be, and Bonnie is a girl's name. My last name is Traveler. I'm a Private Investigator.
..The man said, "Are you Boniface Trave-"
.. "Face."
.. "Face," he corrected, without skipping a beat, and with only so much as a nod of his head. "May I come in?"
..I nodded at him, and directed him to a couch. He more or less collapsed backwards onto it, and kicked his feet onto my coffee table. I closed the door just in time to catch my newspaper, which he threw at me. "Thought I'd bring this in for you," he said.
.. "Thanks." I gave it a casual glance. The main heading read, Trinity Yet to Replace Romain, in big bold letters. Scanning down a bit, I saw the start of the article, which said It's been nearly three months since Trinity terminated Chairperson Diana Romain, and still they show no signs of finding a competent replacement. Romain, 35, was released from the company for reasons unknown as of this time. Experts say that if Romain is not replaced soon, Shinra could gain an upper hand against their rival corporation... I could have read more, but the man had started talking again. That and I spent a few seconds looking at Ms. Romain. She was cute, for a businesswoman in her mid-thirties.
..Anyhow, the man said, "Let's cut to the chase. I hear you're in the Private Investigation trade." I nodded. "Good. Well, in that case, I have a job for you. My name's Setzer Gabianni."
..I choked a bit, when I realized that I was talking to somebody famous, but only for a brief second. I was happier that I confirmed that someone had just, in fact, taken a zeppelin in order to reach my rundown apartment. It gave me a perverse sense of self-worth that the world would be better off hadn't existed. "Do go on," I said.
.. "Very well, then. I want you to go through some paperwork for me. Do some looking into a land sale, and verify if the deeds are authentic, and so forth. You do that sort of thing, don't you?"
.. "I don't see why not." Great. Another paper job. Since I'd become a private investigator, I more or less did nothing but rifle through papers and take photographs and such. But hey, at least this time a famous person was asking me to go through some tedious figures. I asked, "Where are these papers you want me to look into?"
.. "Kohlingen," he said, matter-of-factly. I sputtered.
.. "That's... well, I can see where you'd need the Zeppelin. What brings you this far, just to find a private investigator?"
..He didn't look like he wanted to answer that question. Eventually, he said "It's the company that owns the land now," he said.
.. "What about 'em?"
.. "Shinra."
.."Ah."
..There'd been a lot of buzz about Shinra, lately, and none of it was really good. It had taken a hell of a blow, some time back, and their company was doing everything just to stay afloat. A similar corporation that nobody trusted, Trinity, was always there to compete, and the two companies had been trapped in a stalemate for the last couple of years or so. Shinra was known for being a ruthless, underhanded juggernaut that would crush anyone and anything that got in its way, assuming it could. I could see why the other PIs had turned down the job, though I really didn't see what harm a little investigation would do. I didn't want Setzer to think I was an easy sale, so I asked, "And why exactly should I fly such a huge distance, in order to investigate one of the most untrustworthy corporations in the history of Capitali--"
.. "I'll pay you a ludicrous amount of money."
..I asked him to define "ludicrous". He did. Accurately.
.. "Oh," I said. I gave it some thought, which is my way of saying I slowly counted my teeth while trying to stem my giddiness. Briefly, I considered asking him for even more. It was better to not push my luck, I figured. A number that big had to have been final. "Right, then. When do we fly?"



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